The Carter Center led by former US Secretary of State John Kerry on Wednesday issued a statement highlighting some of the changes IEBC needs to implement ahead of the repeat polls.
In the statement, the US-based Charity Group made recommendations to IEBC related to the preparations for the fresh election to help ensure that it complies with the Supreme Court ruling.
Some of the recommendations made by the group include;
1. The Commission should be transparent and involve all key electoral players in the planning process of the fresh elections, including by holding regular consultative stakeholder forums to consult and update the players on its progress.
2. IEBC should take the necessary steps based on the court ruling to ensure compliance with the legal provisions regarding result tallying and announcements.
3. Kerry's team explained that it is essential that the Commission ensures the constituency-level forms 34B are standardized and if an agent refuses to sign, an annotation of the same should be made on the form as required by the law.
4. Training of poll staff should incorporate corrective measures based on the court’s ruling so that returning officers are fully aware of their responsibility to follow the electoral law and regulations.
5. The electoral agency should comply with the court order and ensure that there is a complementary mechanism in place to guarantee a seamless process in case of technology failure. The IEBC should further ensure that electoral stakeholders are aware of complementary mechanism procedures.
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6. The polls body should work to ensure broad coverage of political party agents across polling stations and especially at the constituency tallying centers. These agents should be well prepared to monitor the counting, tallying and transmission processes.
7. IEBC should enhance the public trust in the KIEMS system and ensure it is functioning properly for the election, the IEBC should conduct a nationwide public test of the results transmission system before the fresh election. The timely testing of KIEMS and other electronic systems necessary to the successful conduct of the election is of vital importance to identify and correct problems, provide transparency and enhance public trust in the operation of the system.
8. The Commission should grant access to its IT system for inspection and audit by independent IT experts and those from political parties, and interested civil society organizations (CSOs) as ordered by the court. This is especially important because the court found that this type of access is constitutionally mandated as part of the transparency requirement.
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The Carter team called on Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) to continue playing a key role in observing and assessing the electoral process to provide an important baseline analysis on which to measure Kenya’s democratic development.
The group also urged Kenya’s political leaders to work with the polls agency to come to a consensus on the changes necessary to hold October 26th presidential election in accordance with the ruling of the Supreme Court, which ordered the fresh polls.
